people wanting government jobs would line up by the hundreds outside lincoln's office, each with a story to tell, a reason his family needed a clerkship or a job in a post office in order to survive. lincoln's secretary told him he didn't have time for these ordinary people. you are wrong, he responded. that's pretty good. >> willie, you say that every day. >> one of my credos. >> i want to ask you about the political courage it took for abraham lincoln to take on this fight. it seems sitting in 2012 like an obvious thing to say, to free our foal people from that bondage. >> what was difficult is he did not run on the abolitionist ticket. he would not have been elected had he run as an abolitionist. he had an urge from his very young years that slavery was an atrocity. but from the beginning when the war first started, he could not let the border states secede and go south. because he couldn't let that happen, he pretty much put on a political theater, meaning he said what had to be said to calm the border states down and before the secession of the southern rebels, he tried very, very h